Race
by water wolf 100
Summary: Something isn't right in Tory's life. She goes to bed one night as a Viral, and wakes to her mom making her breakfast. Where are her powers? and more importantly, where is her pack? Follow Tory and the other Virals on their quest to put things as they should be.
1. Prologue

**Hey there! I'm Wolfie. Long time reader and writer, new to Virals. I read all three books in less than a week. I've been wanting to get back into Fanfiction after a very long hiatus, so here I am. I hope you enjoy. Peace out.**

**I do not own any characters found in this story.**

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Prologue

I've got to get back to the boat. I repeated my mantra over in my head. My bare feet pounded against the hard ground, underbrush scraping at my legs. Almost there.

Breaking out of the forest I take a moment to catch my breath in the sand. Precious seconds are wasted as I glance behind me. Emerging from the trees are three figures, each with a set of glowing golden eyes. It was too late. My eyes, which I knew were the same color, locked with theirs. This was it. It was going to end like this.

I braced myself for the impact.


	2. Chapter 1

Chapter 1

It was the smell of French toast that woke me up.

As I sat up in bed something didn't seen quite right. Today was Friday. Kit never made French toast on Fridays. In fact, he never made French toast period. Something wasn't right.

Blinking a few times in the bright light something else seemed wrong. My window was on my right, so why was the sunlight hitting me directly in the face? A quick scan of my surroundings made my stomach drop. This wasn't my room. At least, it wasn't my room anymore. This was my room in Massachusetts. What the hell was going on?

Cautiously I got out of my bed and my feet sunk into the plush carpet. There was no doubt this was my old room. I was in my old room. I could smell French toast. Could that mean what I was hoping it meant?

I bounded out of my room and reached the edge of the stairs. The smell was stronger now. There was something else. There was a woman singing. It was a voice that I knew I would never hear again. But here it was.

In a trancelike state, I moved down the stairs into the kitchen. It had to have been a dream. My mom was standing there, with her back to me, making French toast at the stove. She looked exactly like I remembered—red hair pulled back into a low bun, tall and slim. She was singing her favorite song, Moon River. I never knew why it was her favorite song, but to me it was the most beautiful sound in the world.

Finding my voice I croaked out a single word. "Mom?"

She turned to me and smiled. "Well good morning, sleepy head! I made your favorite."

In a swift movement I crossed the span of the kitchen and flung my arms around her neck. Tears slipped from my eyes as I held my mom. In surprise she returned the hug and I felt like I was in heaven. Maybe I was. Maybe this is what heaven was.

"Sweetheart, what's wrong? Are you all right?" Mom ran her fingers through my hair. She let go and looked into my eyes.

"I…I just had an awful dream," I finally said.

"Well it was just a dream. You're all right now. Ready for some breakfast?" I nodded and took a seat at the dilapidated table. This was just how I had remembered it. Sitting in the kitchen with my mom; eating French toast. She would have coffee and I would have tea. As the plate was set in front of me, a stack of four pieces of French toast lathered in butter and syrup, I knew that this wasn't a dream. My mom was here, and I was home with her.

But how? I knew that for the past year I lived with my dad on Morris Island. My friends, my pack, were all there. How was I here?

After breakfast, Mom had to go to work so I retreated up to my room. Standing there, surrounded by my things—ribbons, awards, posters, dirty clothes—it all felt wrong. My fingers grazed the top of my dresser which was filled with pictures of me and my friends. Everything was exactly how I remembered it, like I had never left.

My phone sat on my end table. Maybe this was a side effect to our disease. Hallucinations. But Mom seemed so real. I had to get in touch with the boys. It was then I found something else that wasn't right. They weren't in my phone. Shelton, Hi, Ben, Kit, Jason, none of them. Text messages I had saved, contact info, even pictures were simply gone. I switched over to iFollow and wasn't surprised to see that they weren't there either. I had no way to get in touch with my pack. Unless…

I pushed with all my might, trying to flare. Nothing happened though. I tried to think of every single thing that made me angry, the Tripod, Whitney, Chance, and everything. Still nothing happened. I had lost my Flare.

Realizing it was useless; I sunk to my knees and cried. I had my mom back, but I lost my pack. Something was wrong and I had to fix it. And the only way I could do that was if I got back to South Carolina. No matter what I had to get back.

…

Despite my resolve until my mom got home there was nothing that I could do. That meant I had until five o'clock to think of a way to get her to take me to South Carolina. No matter the cost I had to get back. I had to find out where my friends were and why I couldn't flare.

There was a lot of time to kill until the however. A nagging feeling in the back of my head, like an instinct, told me to research LIRI. As I opened my laptop and went to the website, I knew why. There, right on the main page was a picture of Dr. Karsten and the words 'Director of Loggerhead Island Research Institute'.

A small cry escaped my lips as I gazed at his picture. Karsten was dead. Everyone knew it. Granted, not everyone knew how he had died, but his murder was in national news for a week. And now he wasn't dead.

More panic settled in, like a vice around my heart. Again, I tried to flare, thinking that my fear would spark it. Still nothing. My powers were gone. I was hundreds of miles from my pack. I had no way of reaching them. And now two people were back from the dead.

There was no way I was going to wait until my mom got home to deal with this. I grabbed my phone and instinctively dialed her cell number. She answered on the third ring. "Tory? What's going on?"

"Mom, I need you to come home now," I said.

"Tory, I can't just leave in the middle of my shift."

"This is important. You need to come home now. It can't wait."

There was a pause. For a moment I thought she had hung up. "All right. I'll be home in ten minutes." I let out a breath I didn't even know was missing.

Ten minutes later my mom were sitting at the kitchen table facing each other. The look on her face was a mix of fear, concern and confusion. She was waiting for me to start talking. While I was waiting for her, I planned out what I was going to say. That plan vanished from my brain the second she walked through the door.

"This is really hard for me to say," I started. "So, I'll just put it bluntly. I want to go see Kit."

"Kit?" Mom asked. She studied my face for a second, then her eyes went wide. "How do you know about him?"

"It's hard to explain. I know he's my dad though. And I need to go see him."

"Honey, I understand you want to get to know your father. I wish I had told you about him a long time ago. But, the thing is, I don't know where he is."

"Charleston, South Carolina. Well, Morris Island in the Charleston Bay to be exact. He's a marine biologist for LIRI."

More wide eyes. "Where did you find that out? Tory, you're starting to scare me. What's going on?"

"If I told you, you wouldn't believe me." As soon as I said it, I looked down at my shoes. She was going to give me the look again. Whenever my mom knew I was keeping something from her, she gazed at me until I spilled my guts. That was the look I knew she was giving me now.

This wasn't how I wanted this conversation to go, but I took a deep breath and began the backstory to my biggest secret.


	3. Chapter 2

**A/N: I hope you are all enjoying the story so far. Please review and tell me what you think! I have no experience with these characters, so any feedback would be greatly appreciated! Once again, I do not own the characters found in the Virals series.**

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Chapter 2

The sun was setting when I finally finished talking. My mom now knew everything, how I moved to South Carolina, meeting the other Virals, Coop, discovering my powers and everything we had done with them.

For my entire story she remained silent. I noticed her frown when I mentioned the number of felons I had committed in my adventures. There were also flashes of fear across her eyes at the number of times I had been shot at. I cringe at the thought of it.

When I stopped telling my story, she sat there for a several minutes. Antagonizing second after antagonizing second passed until she finally spoke. "You know, most people would never believe a word you said." I cringed. This was not going the way I wanted it to. "But, I'm not most people. I'm your mother and I know you would never fabricate a story like this. I'm not sure why, but I believe you."

My voice was timid. "You do?"

"Yes. Granted, none of it makes any sense. But, everything you said about your dad is true. I don't know where you would have learned that. Something….something makes me believe you."  
"So?" I looked at her hopefully. If she believed me, then I had a chance of getting to South Carolina. I could get back to my pack.

"So, back your bags. We're going to South Carolina."

Twenty minutes later, Mom and I found ourselves in the car heading to the airport. My entire stomach was in jitters. What was I going to find when I got back to my island? Would the boys know who I am? A sinking feeling made me think that they wouldn't.

It was a two hour drive to get to the nearest airport. With Mom behind the wheel, I settled down in the seat and let my brain go into overdrive. I had to look at things scientifically, like Aunt Tempe would. What I knew was that somehow I had woken up and everything that had happened to me in the past year didn't happen. Now I needed to figure out the why and how to my problem. Needless to say it wasn't going to be easy.

Another thought filled my head. Did I want to fix things? The one thing that I had been dreaming about for a year, to have my mom back, had come true. But, it was at the cost of my dad, my friends and my powers.

I looked over at my mom, who had her eyes glued to the strip of road in front of her. She must have noticed me looking at her because she turned to me with a puzzled look on her face.

"Is something wrong, Tory?"

"No. I'm just trying to make sense of everything."

"Well don't put too much thought into it. Why don't you get some rest?"

I nodded and shut my eyes. The movement of the car and the feeling of my mom's presence was enough to put me into a solid sleep.

_Tory. _

Groggily I opened one eye. I had heard my name. "Did you say something?" I asked.

Mom looked over at me. "No. But I was just about to wake you up. We're here." With a glance out the window I saw the airport looming to my right. Farther off were specks of the airplanes. One of them was going to be taking me back to my island.

Parking the car and getting through security took less time than I thought it would have. By some miracle we were just in time to catch a 10:00 nonstop flight to Charleston. It was the last flight of the night, and there were only two seats left. A pang shot through my chest, making me think that everything working out so smoothly was more than a coincidence.

There wasn't time to dwell on coincidences though. A mad dash through the airport had to be completed. I could ponder this more on the plane.

We took our seats in the very back of the plane. Mom looked over at me once again. I had caught her doing this several times since I spilled my secret about being a Viral. Even without my power or being able to smell emotions I knew what she was feeling. She was afraid. What I didn't know was if she was afraid of what we would find when we got to Charleston, or if she was afraid of me. I wouldn't have blamed her. There were a number of times I was afraid of me as well.

"Are you sure you want to go through with this?" she asked me once again. "It's not too late to turn around now and go back home."

"I have to do this. I know that something is wrong. Everything I saw and did, I know it wasn't a dream. My friends need me, and I'll never give up on them."

After a number of announcements from the pilot and stewardess we were ready to take off. As the plane picked up speed and I felt the lurch of the wheels leaving the ground, I instinctively reached out and took my mom's hand. Flying was something I was never a fan of. A few minutes later and we were cursing through the air.

"What are you going to say to him?" Mom asked me. I didn't have to ask who she was talking about.

"Honestly, I haven't figured that part out. Far I've been figuring this out as I go along." Mom frowned.

"Better start thinking. It's only a three hour flight." She didn't say anything after that. What was I going to say to Kit? 'Hey there, Kit. I'm your daughter. You never knew that I existed, but for the past year I've lived with you.' That was a one-way ticket to the loony-bin as far as I knew. And then there were the boys. I know pretty much everything about them, but they would probably have no clue who I was. The thought of it made me sick.

My three hours of planning were completely ineffective. As we left the jet way I knew that it was all up to me now. The airport was a twenty-five minute drive from the shore. The problem was that it was 1am. If we showed up at Kit's door now he would probably call the police.

"Let's find a hotel," I said to Mom. "We can go out to the island first thing in the morning. Hopefully Kit doesn't have to go into work tomorrow." Mom nodded and we headed over to the rent-a-car counter. An hour later I was passing out in a dingy hotel bed. We didn't have much of a budget, and this crappy little motel was the cheapest thing we could stay in. On the plus side, it was very close to the shore.

A plan was forming in my head. As soon as it got light, we would drive out to the island and go to Kit's. I would have mom talk to him while I went out to find the boys. If I was lucky, they would be in the bunker.

I dreamed that night that the boys and I took Sewee out to Loggerhead. When we landed the first thing I noticed was Coop pushing his nose out of the trees. He stood there, watching me. I wanted to call to him, but he just growled at me. I was a stranger to him. It broke my heart.

Behind me the boys vanished and were replaced by my mom. They both stood equidistant from me. A choice stood before me—either follow Coop and my pack, or return home with my mom.

I woke up screaming.

Mom was beside me, stroking my head like she did when I was little. "Shhh, Tory, it's all right. It was just a dream. You're all right," she soothed. I whimpered and took her hand in mine. As I fell back asleep I hoped that the choice in my dream was something that I would never have to make.


	4. Chapter 3

**A/N: Hey all! Here's another chapter. I hope you're enjoying this little adventure. Please review and let me know what you think, good or bad. I can take criticism.**

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Chapter 3

I would be a liar if I said I wasn't nervous to make the drive out to Morris Island that morning. Each mile that passed coiled the knot in my stomach a little tighter.

"Ready?" Mom asked me as the edge of the shore came into view. Everything looked exactly the same, like I had never left.

I nod and begin directing towards where Kit and I lived. She slows the car to a stop and glances over the building.

"This is it?" she asks.

"Yep. This is it." Taking a deep breath, I open the door and step out of the car. The ten feet from the curb to the front door are filled with anxiety and apprehension. There is no telling how this conversation it going to go.

With an approving nod from my mom, I ring the doorbell.

Kit is at the door moment later. He looks like he had just gotten up minutes before. Mug of coffee in hand, and clad in pajamas, Kit gazes at the two strange women on his doorstep.

Mom speaks first. "Kit?" she asks cautiously.

"Can I help you?" Somewhere in his eyes there is a spark of familiarity, but not of me.

"You probably don't remember me. I'm Colleen Brennan."

"Colleen? Cape Code Colleen Brennan?" His eyes grow wide as memories of my mom must come flooding back to him.

"It's good to see you again, Kit." The two of them, my parents, stare at each other. A strange sensation takes over me. This is the first time the three of us have ever been together. It's like we're a family.

Of course, Mom is the one to make it awkward. "And this is Tory, my daughter." Kit glances down at me. Since she didn't say 'our daughter' Kit probably thinks that I'm some other guy's kid. I look a lot more like my mom than my dad, so it's an easy assumption.

Kit finally finds his voice. "Why don't both of you come in?" He opens the door wider for us to enter. The townhouse looks exactly the same, except for of course, my things scattered around and Coop's bowl in the corner are missing.

Kit offers us seats in the kitchen and stands by the counter. "So what brings you all the way out here?" Mom and I exchange glances. We didn't decide which of us was going to be the one to tell him.

Since it was my idea to come here, I decide to take the initiative. "After fourteen years of it being just me and my mom, I decided that it was high time for me to meet my dad."

I study Kit's face as my words sink in. His expression turns from one of general surprise to one of general horror and shock. His eyes widen, and his mouth drops open.

"Your dad? You're in my kitchen, saying that you want to meet your dad. I'm the only one that lives here…that means…I'm your…" Before Kit gets a chance to finish his sentence, he slumps to the ground. Mom rushes to his side to try and wake him.

If the situation hadn't been so serious, I would have laughed. The last time I had seen Kit this shocked was when he actually found out he had a daughter. He even took the news that I had committed a number of felons better than this.

"Mom," I say softly. "There are some things I need to take care of. I need to go find the boys."

"You go. I'll take care of your dad. When he wakes up there are some things we need to talk about. Be careful though."

"No worries," I call as I head towards the door.

"For the past twelve hours, all I have done is worry," she yells back.

I step out of the townhouse and into the bright morning light. The smell of the sand and ocean greet me like an old friend. No matter how this whole mess resolves, I decided that I want to live here. After the past year, I could never live away from the ocean again.

Without Sewee to take the short way to the bunker, I have to walk across the sand. Thankfully it is still early enough that it doesn't scorch my sandal clad feet.

There is no way of knowing if the boys are in the bunker, so I take my time walking over. Explaining to them who I am is even more difficult than telling Kit. There is no way I can walk up to them and say, "Hey there guys. I'm Tory, one of your best friends."

As I reach the bunker I realized I made a mistake. This was our new bunker, the one that we found after our old one was discovered by Karsten. If my theory was right, and that none of our adventures had never happened, they would be at the old bunker. Cursing I turn around and make my way to the old bunker.

Shelton's voice is the one I hear first. Music to my ears. "I don't understand how hard it is to be one time once in a while. This is the third time this week!"

Hi's reply comes next. "Next time I say we just leave without him."

"And go where exactly, moron? Ben is the one with the boat!"

I approach the door to the bunker and take a breath. They must have heard me walking because Hi goes, "Here he is. Finally, dude!" The door swings open and my eyes lock with Hi's. "You're not Ben."

"What do you mean it's not Ben? Who else would be outside?" Shelton steps outside and stares at me, mouth agape.

"Umm, hi," I say sheepishly.

"Who the hell are you?" Shelton asks, glaring at me.

"And how did you find this place?" Hi added.

Now is not the time for me to panic. "My name is Tory Brennan. I'm Kit Howard's daughter."

"Kit has a daughter?" Hi asked. There was a tone of suspicion in his voice, like I was making it up.

"Yeah. Me. My mom and I just got here. She's explaining everything to him now."

Cue dramatic pause from the boys. A very awkward dramatic pause.

Hi is the first to break the silence. "Well welcome to Morris Island then or, as we like to call it, the end of the world. I'm Hiram Stolowitski, but you can call me Hi. And this is Shelton Devers." I smile. Hi had given me the same speech when I first got to the island after the accident.

They step aside to let me into the bunker. "So, Tory, how did you find our little hide-a-way?" Shelton asks, plopping down on the floor.

I was about to string together a lie, when the door to the bunker opens again. I whirled around to face the fourth member of my pack. Ben didn't notice me for a second, but once he acknowledged my presence his eyes went wide. "OK, I know I'm not so late that the two of you found time to replace me," he said cautiously.

"Ben, Tory. Tory this is Ben," Shelton explained. I casually waved to Ben in greeting.

A feeling of relief and joy swelled up in me. My pack was together again. Well, four of us at least. I still had no clue how I was going to explain to them how we are Virals and have crazy powers. But, at least I was able to get the introductions out of the way.

Shelton is about to say something when it hits. A burst of pain shoots through me. Gripping my head as if my brains are going to burst out; I sink to the floor. I'm vaguely aware of someone screaming, but I can't tell if it's me. Even when I first started to flare, it didn't hurt like this. My head felt like it going to explode like an overfilled water balloon.

After what feels like antagonizing hours the pain subsides. The pressure in my head releases and I'm able to open my eyes for a second. I can see Shelton, Ben and Hi all on the ground clutching their heads. It's not just me. Something is wrong with us. But what? And how?

_Still a pack. _

The words whisper in my head, just like when I was in the car with my mom. The voice is familiar to me, but I can't place it. The pressure returns to my head and blackness fills my eyesight.

…

I moan softly. My head feels like it was just run over by a train.

"She's coming around," someone says gently. I recognize it as Ben's voice. I crack my eyes open to see him peering over me. Concern was etched on his face. There is no sign of Hi or Shelton.

Gently, Ben eases me into a sitting position. The pulsing in my head is gone, but is replaced by a dull ache in my temples. With a nod to Ben, he lets go of my shoulder and I turn to see Shelton easing Hi up as well. I was right, all four of us were hit by the same pain.

"What was that?" Hi asks. "It feels like a thousand tiny leprechauns were drilling into the back of my skull.

Shelton nods. "Same here. Everyone ok?"

"I'm good," Ben adds. "But I think I'm going nuts. Could have sworn someone was talking to me during that."

That gets my attention. Did Ben hear the same thing I did?

"You too? I heard a voice too. I thought I imagined it," Shelton said in a fearful voice.

"Ditto," Hi squeaks out.

"What did you guys hear?" I ask. Every fiber of my body hoped that they heard the same thing I did. The words the voice spoke echoed in my brain. _Still a pack_.

Ben's brow furrows in concentration. He looks like he is digging deep to remember the words.

Finally he speaks up, "It makes no sense. The words 'tap into your powers'. Whatever that means."

"Make more sense than mine," Shelton mumbles. "'Bring out the wolf.' Is this someone's idea of a prank?"

We all look over at Hi, waiting for him to say what he heard in his head. Matching our gaze the words, "Remember who you are," Come out of his mouth.

I scowl. Each of us heard a voice in our heads referencing us being Virals. But how? From the looks of it, we were never Virals to begin with. If I never came to Morris then we never would have gone into Lab 6 to clean the dog tag. Then we never would have found Coop and wouldn't have become Virals in the first place. So where was this all coming from?

"What about you, Tory? A mysterious voice in your head with some gibberish?" Hi asks me.

"Yeah, I got something. But it's not gibberish to me," I mutter softly. "I know what it means. Have a seat, boys. This is going to be intense."


	5. Chapter 4

**A huge thanks to the people who have read and left reviews. This is a fun piece for me to write. With it being my first Virals fic, I hope I'm capturing the characters well. Let me know what you think! Peace out,**

**Wolfie**

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Chapter 4

"You're all going to think I'm nuts, but just hear me out," I begin.

I sat on the ground with the boys sitting around me, waiting for me to begin. Their eyes bore into me with a mixture of confusion and curiosity.

"Where do I even begin?" I ask mostly to myself. "The four of us have all met before. We've been friends for the past year. My mom died in a car accident, and I was sent to live here with my dad. The four of us became friends right after I got here. But now, something is wrong. I woke us this morning and none of that had happened. My mom was still alive and the things we all did together never happened."

Three blank looks. The three faces that I had gotten to know so well, now looked at me as a raving lunatic.

Ben was the first to say something. Well, he didn't actually say anything. After staring at me for a while, he snorted and stood up.

"You're kidding right? Look, Tory, you seem nice enough but this is ridiculous. I'm out of here. If you guys want to stay and listen to this crap be my guest." He started for the door before I had a chance to say anything else.

"Wait!" I cried out. It was too late. Ben was already through the door and out of sight. I turn back to Hi and Shelton who both looked ready to bolt.

"Should we go?" Hi asked Shelton.

Before Shelton answered, he studied my face. I mentally pleaded with him to just listen for five more minutes. Slowly, Shelton shook his head.

"You say you know us, prove it," he said firmly. I broke out into a smile.

"Well, Shelton, I know that you are the best lock picker in South Carolina. You once told me you pick any lock in under thirty seconds. You're proud of your heritage, which is African-American and Japanese. You're the go-to guy for anything technical with a motor or any sort of puzzle." I sat back and waited for their reaction.

Shelton regarded me carefully. I hit the nail on the head, and we both knew it. Shelton, however, wasn't letting anything on.

"All right," he said slowly. "What about Hi?"

I grinned. He was starting to believe me. "The first thing I can say about Hi is that his second language is sarcasm." I turn to face him. "You wear those Hawaiian shirts almost exclusively. Your mom is in charge of the neighborhood watch, which unless it's attacked by a disgruntled flounder, is utterly unnecessary. You're love of computers and machines come from your dad, who is a lab tech over at LIRI."

"There are only three explanations as to how you just did that," Hi muttered. "One, you work for the government and have had tabs on us for years. Two, you're an alien with mind reading powers. Or three, you're telling the truth."

"What do you think it is, doofus?" Shelton snapped.

"So, if what you're saying is true and you do know us, then explain how any of this happened." Hi crossed his arms and waited for my answer.

"I don't know. That's what I'm trying to find out. None of this is right. A lot more than us just not knowing each other. But I don't want to tell you without Ben. Let's head over to the dock and I'll explain everything."

"How do you know he'll be at the dock?" Shelton clearly didn't understand just how well I knew all of them.

"Whenever Ben's mad, he goes and sits on Sewee. I told you guys that I know you, Ben included."

The three of us slipped out of the bunker and made a dash for the docks by the townhouses. I was the first to spot Sewee, bobbing up and down in the gentle current. Sitting in the hull, just as I knew he would be, was Ben.

He must have heard our feet pounding on the docks because he suddenly stood and turned to face us. "What?"

"Dude," Hi panted. "Tory was telling the truth. It's freaky. She knows all this stuff about us. Stuff that most people don't know. She was the one who knew you would be here."

Ben rolled his eyes. Before I could speak there was a sound of someone running down the dock. I turned to see my mom bounding towards us, red hair bouncing behind her.

"Tory, there you are," she called. "I just got done talking to your dad. He said he doesn't know anything about Cooper or the experiments in Lab 6." It took all my strength to not smack myself in the face.

"Lab 6? Over at LIRI?" I had Ben's attention now.

"Mom, I hadn't gotten to that part yet." The words hissed out of my mouth a little more forcefully than I intended. Taking the hint, Mom took a few steps back.

"Talk." Ben's order was firm.

"As Shelton and Hi already believe, the four of us are friends. One day we went over the Loggerhead and one of the monkeys threw a dog tag at us for getting in her clearing. We broke into Lab 6 to clean it and find out who it belonged to. There, we found Cooper."

"Who's Cooper?" Hi asked.

"One of Whisper's puppies." Three shocked glances met me. Whisper and her family living on the island was not common knowledge, even less so was that there were puppies.

I continued in a soft voice, in case anyone else could hear me. "Dr. Karsten has the younger puppy, who I named Cooper, locked in Lab 6. He's doing experiments on him, making a designer strain of Parvovirus. It's an illness that is deadly to dogs, but normally doesn't hurt humans."

"And Karsten was testing this on an innocent puppy?" Shelton's eyes flashed with disgust.

"We saved him. Broke him out of the lab and took care of him. All four of us did it. But, this was a special genetically altered version of Parvo. It did affect humans. Namely, us."

I scuffed the ground with my sandal. I decided to leave out the Heaton mystery until later. The boys, namely Hi and Shelton, wouldn't take well to hearing about how we had almost died a number of times solving a 40-year-old murder.

"What did it do exactly?" Shelton's voice broke me out of my train of thought.

"This is the part that's going to be hardest to believe."

"I just found out that there's a girl who says she knows us, and can tell us all these things about stuff we've supposedly done. Not much more that can surprise me."

"You don't know the half of it, Hi. Like I said, this strain of Parvo was genetically altered so it didn't work like anything anyone had ever seen before. When the virus got into us, it altered our DNA. We became something…different. Something…not fully human. Our DNA was almost completely human, with just a little bit of wolf in it."

Cue collective gasps and gawks from the boys. A few other words slipped out as well, ones that my mom would disapprove of. I glanced over my shoulder. She was just standing there, looking out at the bay. I still wasn't used to seeing her after all this time.

"So this is your normal? When you said things weren't right, you meant that we weren't the freaking X-Men. And what do you want us to do about this exactly?" Shelton's voice had raised at least an octave.

Hi was staring at his shoes, probably wishing that he hadn't gotten out of bed this morning. Ben just looked at me, expressionless as usual.

"We need to save Cooper. Karsten would have killed him if we didn't rescue him."

A flurry of words was thrown in my face.

"You want us to go break into LIRI and save a wild dog?"

"How does this not sound insane to you?"

"What kind of lunatics do you take us for?"

"Why would you want us to actually have that happen to us?"

Those last words stuck with me. I gazed at Shelton, who had been the last to speak. This was a chance. A chance for us to be normal again. No more mysteries, no more people shooting at us. No more freak powers, making us even more of outcasts than we already were.

But it also meant that the connection we shared, the bond that made us Virals wouldn't be there. The things we did, the people we had helped, what would happen to them?

"Tor!" I turned to the familiar nickname. "If what you're saying is true, and these things never happened to us. Then maybe you should take it as a second chance. Not many people get those in life." Ben's face was stony.

"Think about it for a while. Then come talk to us." Hi gave me a weak smile and with a nod to the others walked back up the dock. Shelton and Ben followed him without a word. I was left standing on the dock, feeling more abandoned than I ever had in my life.

As a sob shook through my body, Mom stood by my side to console me.

"Tory, you knew there was a chance of this happening."

"Yeah. I know. How did Kit take it?"

"Not well. After he woke up it took a little while for him to calm down enough for me talk to him about anything else. I left out the wolf DNA part though."

"Let's just go back to the hotel. I need to figure this out."

We got back into the car and as we pulled away I caught a glimpse of the boys watching me from the beach. I decided against waving good-bye to them. It would take some time for what I said to really sink in.

At the hotel Mom tried to cheer me up, but there were too many things swimming in my head. For months we had been trying to find a cure for our flares. Now, out of nowhere, I didn't have it anymore and all I could think about was getting my powers back.

No matter how weird or freaky they were, not having them anymore felt wrong. My flares were a part of me now. And I had to get them back, no matter what.


End file.
